---
term: "Mandate"
category: "Mandates and authorisation"
url: https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/mandate
source: AgenticOpenFinance glossary
---

# Mandate

> A checkable statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, how much, with whom and until when.

A mandate is a statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, up to what amount, with which counterparties and until when. In the Agent Payments Protocol a mandate is a tamper-evident, cryptographically signed digital credential, and in OAuth-based systems the same idea is carried by scopes or rich authorisation details. A well-formed mandate can be checked by a third party without asking the agent, which is what makes it useful as evidence.

Related terms: [Principal](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/principal.md), [Open mandate](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/open-mandate.md), [Closed mandate](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/closed-mandate.md), [Rich Authorization Requests](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/rich-authorization-request.md), [Spend limit](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/spend-limit.md)